Many home networks and other local area networks (LANs) include multiple end user devices are positioned behind a network address translation (NAT) device such as a home router. Such NAT devices obscure the identity of devices operating in the LAN and prevent the operation of certain communication techniques with individual devices. For example, if a system is attempting to use web page acceleration techniques in web communications with devices behind a NAT, it is difficult to know which end user devices can be accelerated and which cannot.
The impact of NAT devices is often seen in web browsing, in which a user selects web page content and receives objects, which is a core part of the Internet experience for Internet users. While the experience of users is typically a single selection followed by the viewing of a web page that is presented on the screen, the process of presenting the web page on the screen can involve a large number of objects and multiple request/response round trip communications from the user system to a system that is providing the web page.
One method of improving the performance of web page transmission and presentation is HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) prefetching. HTTP prefetching typically involves pre-requesting content on behalf of a client or browser before a request for that content is actually generated as a typical HTTP request and response in the course of a typical web page transaction. Certain prefetching embodiments involve pre-requesting content based on predictions about a future user selection without any actual action or selection by the user. Other HTTP prefetching systems involve pre-requesting content in response to a user action or selection as part of a web page transaction. In such systems, when content is prefetched it may become possible to satisfy the request for that content locally (with regard to the client or browser) or at a location with a lower latency to the user, thereby negating the need to transmit the request and wait for the response from a content server. For example, in cases where there exists high latency between the client generating the request and the server which responds with the context requested, each negated request/response may avoid the penalty for such latency, thereby potentially reducing the total time required to satisfy the entire series of requests for the client. This may result in an accelerated end user experience.